Development of a new application method for forest 3-D point clouds

2016 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15K14763
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Forest science
• Research Institution: Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute
• Principal Investigator: Hiraoka Yuichiro 国立研究開発法人森林総合研究所, 林木育種センター, 室長 (50370862)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): MATSUSHITA Michinari 国立研究開発法人 森林総合研究所, 林木育種センター, 主任研究員 (70624899)
• Research Collaborator: SAITO Kazuto
• Project Period (FY): 2015-04-01 – 2017-03-31
• Keywords: 3次元点群 / 地上型レーザスキャナ / 樹木モデル / 高速処理

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, our objective is to develop a new analysis method for 3-D point clouds obtained in forest stands using the terrestrial LiDAR. We developed a rapid and automatic method of dividing point clouds into each individual tree and of subdividing into stem, branch and foliage, and of modeling these organs. We also estimated morphological traits of the organs. We have evaluated several traits such as tree height and stem diameter based on the modeling method and validated the estimation. As a result, the validation showed that our method could accurately estimate those traits. We believe that the developed method in this study is effective for measuring morphological traits and it may be able to replace the traditional forest survey methods.

Free Research Field

林木育種学、森林生態学